As an artist and graphic designer, Doug Keyes is hyperaware of the ways in which information and images are conveyed to the public. He is equally aware of the way knowledge stacks upon itself over time, leaving an impression or collective memory. Keyes’ luminous color photographs of books reveal (or conceal) the entire contents in a single image. Produced with multiple exposures of all the pertinent pages of each book, the resulting images represent a condensed document of the ideas contained within as well as the physical identity of the book itself.

BECOMING LANGUAGE

These multiple exposure photographs document travel along a route or within a specific area in an attempt to record what the eye doesn't see but the mind retains. Subliminal markers of public information, from the ubiquitous buildings of corporate chains, to temporary car wash signs and monuments of long forgotten war heroes. Each image is part of a larger Collective Memory project that attempts to answer the question: How do we know what we know?